Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, People of all ages – SI brings to you the first comprehensive review on the Internet of the new Tamil Film “Avan Ivan” (starring Vishal, Arya, G.M. Kumar, Janani Iyer, Madhu Shalini and Ambika. Director: Bala).

Alas, the only vile thought running in my mind right through the movie was “Ivan verum Bala va? ille lavadaikebala vaa?”

Seriously, y’all don’t have wait for the end of the review to raise your middle finger to this horrendous piece of shit. Do it now and do it again with gusto.

Tamil Cinema and its mostly boot-licking patrons often misuse words like “Genius”, “Masterpiece”, “Reality”, “Class” etc. to provide handjobs to mediocre film makers like Bala. And Bala rightly responds to such fawning adulation by farting in the face of the gullible Tamil audience.

Story Synopsis
Given the travesty on the screen, the best thing to do would be to leave this section blank.

That would truly be the most accurate representation of Avan Ivan.

However, for the benefit of readers, here are the loosely connected dots to beguile you into a false impression that there was indeed a story.

The ‘story’ is set in a remote village in Tamil Nadu where all the people deify an old man who goes by the unusual name of Highness (G.M. Kumar).

Highness is very close (for reasons unexplained) to two small time crooks Walter (Vishal) and Kumbidaren Saamy (Arya). Walter and Kumbidaren Saamy are step brothers. They along with their respective mothers and father are one foul mouthed family who are waiting to tear each other to pieces.

The movie goes on and on with no speck of a story or even an attempt to build a story. For the most part, people just talk.

There is a sub-plot involving someone who duped Highness many years ago and it unites the entire village in support of Highness.

There is another sub plot around Arya’s love interest being the daughter of that someone who duped Highness. Both are classic Tamil cinema clichés.

Every time a story threatens to develop, Bala displays his directorial panache and squashes it with his feet and pees all over it.

Highness discovers a bad guy running a racket collecting cows from the villages and selling them off to a meat factory. The bad guy is arrested but he returns and kills Highness.

The last 10 minutes of the movie shows how our two dimwitted crooks react to that development, a reaction that would only be all too obvious to you folks.

Bala has the audacity to stuff this horrible script down the audience’s throat.

The Little Thing called Acting
Even if you make “Acting” into a cricket bat and slam it against the likes of Vishal and Arya, they wouldn’t feel a thing, just like in Tamil cinema.

Vishal
It will not be surprising if Tamil media goes gaga over Vishal’s acting in this movie but to sane minds, this creature without a single acting gene in him seemed plain confused.

Is his character an eunuch or a cross-dresser or a transvestite or a trans-gender? In one scene he is stealing stuff, in another he’s an eunuch, then he is a performer on the street or stage, then he cooks for Highness, courts Constable Baby and, of course, he bashes bad guys to pulp with his bare fists.

He thrusts his pelvis scarily close to the camera on more than one occasion. Hey Vishal, we accept that you have one and, no, we have no interest in seeing it up so close.

Vishal is also given a weird squint-eyed look and his dialogue delivery is of a pre-teen school boy.

Arya
Arya extends his village idiot role from Boss Engira Bhaskaran and plays second fiddle in the movie with nothing in particular to do.

Vishal clearly has more prominence and screen time than Arya, who it seems was supposed to provide comic relief.

We can’t fathom why he would accept such a lousy role. Arya also gets a love interest called “Thenmuli”

G.M. Kumar
The short fat bald old Highness played by G.M Kumar is the strongest character in the film and he delivers a so-so performance.

The movie has a rather long and unnecessary full frontal and rear male nudity.

When you cannot write a remotely cohesive story or screenplay and you know female nudity will not be allowed then why not strip a man naked and provide shock value with that au naturel look! Bala thinks right out of his ass on this one.

The leading ladies are unattractive and utterly pathetic. The less said of them the better.

Depressing Screenplay, Disgusting Dialogs
With such a lousy “story” and incompetent star cast, the screenplay and dialogues department is irrelevant.

Scenes such as the following take away any credibility Bala might have built over the years:

* The movie begins with a rather nauseating Dandanakka song with Vishal dressed in saree jumping like a monkey on a high.

* A village Tiruvizha scene where Highness is honored by seating him in a royal seat on a Ther with the villagers pulling it.

* Vishal and Arya are made to look weird physically and figuratively for no apparent reason.

* Nobody got their dialect, accent or dialogue delivery to match the backdrop.

* The two idiots look natural when they jump around, which they do for the most part of the movie.

* When you don’t know how to fill time what do you do? Get a Star to do a guest appearance. Actor Surya comes as himself and promotes his real life social cause – Agaram. A completely unwarranted scene that only a numbskull like Bala could have conjured up.

I wonder if he got paid anything at all for serving up this cacophony in the name of music.

There was not a single hummable tune even in the BGM. The songs and music were horrible beyond comprehension. The only two songs that I barely recollect are “Dia Dia Dole” and “Rasathi“. I vaguely remember them because of how awful they were.

Yuvan should be whipped for producing this drivel and Illayaraja will probably hide his face in shame for producing Yuvan.

Any Redeeming Elements?
The only redeeming factor is the backdrop of Theni and Ambasamudhram where the movie has been filmed.

Some shots capture the natural scenery beautifully.

Vishal and Arya’s simian antics are appropriate for some inconsequential scenes.

The final fight scene was well shot by Tamil Cinema standards or lack of it. It’s nothing path-breaking though.

Verdict
If you’re the sort who gets wet / a hard-on by watching a short fat bald old man butt naked in a Tamil movie, then this one is for you.

As for the rest of you sane, normal souls, steer clear of this trashy movie at any cost.

Avan Ivan is advertised as Comedy Drama. The only comedy we could discern is Bala laughing hysterically at the audience and the only drama is what Bala does in front of the media.

Avan Ivan is a load of shit with Bala’s name on it to bamboozle us.

Bala has robbed me of six hours of my life. Make sure you don’t fall prey to his tricks.

Nandha – My friend & I walked out after 45 minutes. We could not stand it anymore.

Pitamagan – It lasted about 30 minutes and I gave up.

Naan Kadavul – Endured this torture at my friend’s place but thankfully we had a remote so we could forward most of the movie.

Avan Ivan – If I didn’t have the responsibility to review then I would have walked out 20-30 minutes into the movie. I suspect Ready / Badrinath would not give me this mental torture that LDK Bala gave.

Bala claims to make serious movies. In my opinion he does not know how to weave a simple story. To make up for his poor story / story telling ability he falls back on outlandish gimmicks, over the top performances and generating shock value.

Bala is often touted as a realistic film maker. In my opinion Reality is not always showing filth or exaggerated or obscene language or poverty.

Making village based movies with filth or filthy characters is a convenient ploy adopted by these lazy filmmakers to make claims of being realistic.

It is sad that in India gimmicks are often hailed as great performances.

I have nothing against showing filth or violence or poverty as long as there is a solid story and a need for the scenes.

SI – No plans to review Bheja Fry 2? Have you seen the first Bheja Fry – a copy of the French Movie “The Dinner Game”?

SearchIndia.com Responds:

No, we didn’t watch Bheja Fry for three reasons: 1. We didn’t see Bheja Fry 1 and therefore would not have a point of comparison for the sequel. 2. The movie had a limited release. 3. We purchased an iPad 2 and have been playing with it ad infinitum (will review it soon along with a list of some nice iPad Apps).

Oh yes.. I have sometimes seen reviews as early as US Thursday mornings.

SearchIndia.com Responds:

Only on one or two occasions (when the Bollywood movies released here early because of a holiday or a long weekend) were we the first to put out the reviews. But most of the time we have a time zone disadvantage.

Off-topic: We have the review of a popular Chennai 100% Vegetarian restaurant coming up in a little while here.

After watching Avan Ivan , I can’t say I disagree with your review. This is indeed the worst of Bala’s movies. The main drawback of Avan Ivan is that it has no story to go with it. You can watch just the last 20 minutes of Avan Ivan and still you wouldn’t have missed anything important. But I completely disagree with you about Pithamagan. That was a lovely movie. Although I liked Nandha, I can’t say it’s a movie that can be liked by everyone. People have different tastes.

The guy who portrayed Highness in Avan Ivan was nothing short of a fat tramp acting like he escaped from some mental institution. I loved two scenes. One is the cameo by Surya, particularly Arya’s comments. The other is when Arya cleverly robs the girls of their money and valuables.

Some people who were sitting behind us were loudly commenting about how lousy the movie was and how they wasted their time and money by watching it.

Some of our friends warned us not to go to this movie or even go via the road of the theater that screens this movie. And, I spread the word (link of this review) to reduce ‘the damage’ happening to mankind.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find an Internet footage that comes a few seconds before this where the girl tries to reach the victim. “True Grit” (2010) is available for instant viewing in Netflix. The footage above is just a sound track version. It is even better in the actual film. It is pretty much quiet with just a few lines between characters, gorgeously shot and well acted.